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Chickan writes "'A puff a day might keep Alzheimer's away, according to marijuana research by professor Gary Wenk and associate professor Yannic Marchalant of the Ohio State Department of Psychology. Wenk's studies show that a low dosage in the morning of a certain canavanoid, a component in marijuana, reversed memory loss in older rats' brains. In his study, an experimental group of old rats received a dosage, and a control group of rats did not. The old rats that received the drugs performed better on memory tests, and the drug slowed and prevented brain cell death.' My fine university's dollars at work!" Maybe it works even better in combination with brain-preserving sips of coffee.

No it's just that in the rat's the puff they are not able to measure any memory loss with aging because they already lost it.

There's a huge difference between "memory" and "cognative skill". To operate at a rat, requires a lot of different skills. Huge chunks of their brain are devoted to 0) fleaing predators 1) not eating poison 2) navigating and memorizing paths by smell and touch, not sight or time.

it's entirely plausible that different drugs could shift the relative effort in these areas and improve t

More likely is that it stimulates retrograde signaling [nih.gov] pathways, which are implicated in the formation and maintenance of long-term memories.

This is because the chemical receptors of neurons implicated with this process are stimulated by "endo-cannabinoids", or, molecules created by the brain which are chemically similar to THC found in cannabis. Ingesting THC (in one form or another...) will stimulate these receptors, which then triggers neurons to fire.

When you stop to consider that an Alzheimer's afflicted brain has major damage going on [alzheimer.ca], and then also consider the implications of neuroplasticity [wikipedia.org] along with this induced retrograde signal propagation, it could be seen that by stimulating neurons that are failing or near inoperable, their information could be transferred to healthier tissues, and retained, rather than simply "lost."

It's a bit like running FSCK on your brain, in an attempt to recover data from bad sectors.

This is a misnomer anyway. The old studies showing that marijuana causes memory loss were refuted long ago. In fact, almost all of the supposed negative effects of marijuana use were reported by one biased research team and their work can generally be dismissed outright.

There is a short term memory impairment caused by consistent regular high dose usage but it returns in an extremely short period of time after discontinuing marijuana use. The memory effects of years of marijuana use are reversed after as little as a month of discontinuing use.

The real negative side effects of marijuana use are 'a false sense of well being' *scratches head over that being considered negative*, the aggravation of already existing heart conditions, and the ability to cause and/or exacerbate lung conditions/cancer. The last is actually caused by the inhalation of smoke and can be avoided by using other means of ingestion.

Whole marijuana, like any other herb, will NEVER be considered a legal treatment for any condition by the AMA or FDA for Alzheimer's or anything else. The medical profession as a whole does not recommend natural supplements and herbs, they prefer prescription medications that are composed of purified and isolated chemicals.

The best that can be hoped is that prohibition and prosecution will be stopped against those using, posessing, distributing, and selling what is a fairly harmless herbal supplement. Addiction rates and known side effects (and liklihood of incidence) pale in comparison to over the counter medications like ephedrine, cough syrup, and asprin; not to mention prescription medications.

Because America is divided between people who hate risk more than they love freedom and people who hate hippies more than they love freedom.

WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The REASONS are DuPont and other companies that hemp was a major threat to, like the cotton industry, paper industry, oils industry, and more. Hemp had a virtual monopoly because it's so damned useful. In fact hemp oil was still the STANDARD recommended machine lubricant during the WWII era.

I always thought that marijuana has never been legalized, is because no one can ever remember where they left the petitions!!!

Hemp AKA marijuana was legal to begin with in the US. Many of the USA'a Founding Fathers were farmers who grew hemp. The first three presidents of the USA George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson all grew hemp on their farms. Thomas Jefferson once said farmers should be required to grow hemp, however he couldn't propose such a law because he knew that it would violate the farmers' rights. Hemp was only made illegal with the passage of the Marijuana Tax ACT [wikipedia.org] of 1937. Yet even then it wasn't compleatly illegal. During WWII the federal government's Department of Agriculture produced the movie "Hemp for Victory" [youtube.com] and showed it to farmers to encourage them to grow hemp. Besides the oil from hemp seeds, hemp was used to make cloth, cords, and rope.

Alan Ginsberg wrote a reasonably scholarly treatise a few decades ago called "The Marijuana Papers" detailing the campaign of Harry J. Ainslinger to portray marijuana smokers as some deranged combination of heroin and speed addict. Nobody knew any differently, and the media channel was rather narrow in the late 30's when Ainslinger used the weed as a plank in his senatorial campaign. We would somehow need to unravel and counter that in order to repeal the damage. I'd suggest you're right, that some form of education campaign is in order here.

And marijuana wasn't actually rendered illegal in subsequent legislation, it was simply given an egregiously high federal tax per ounce on its sale. By avoiding the tax, traffickers were able to be pursued by federal rather than state authorities, thus its entrenchment in federal pursuit.

It was postulated that since the perception was that only blacks smoked hemp, the idea of this "social disease" being transmitted cross-culturally implied a form of sanction for racism, and thus appealed to the fearful white anglo-saxon protestant (WASP) that made up most of Ainslinger's voter demographic in 1938.

Cannabis was renamed by white US politicians as "marijuana" to associate it with itinerant Mexican laborers. It was claimed to cause madness and violence in the "daker races". It was claimed that it caused "our" white women to seek relations with "negroes".
Criminalizing it was a way to control the Mexicans and the blacks. Thelonius Monk was banned from playing New York clubs because he had a "marijuana" conviction and had his club card pulled.

the first and third presidents of the USA, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp on their farms. The second president John Adams wanted to use hemp as a cash crop.

Yeah but they weren't smoking it. Marijuana generally refers to dope not rope

When hemp was outlawed drug warriors called it marijuana to confuse people. In testimony before congress Dr. James Woodward [yahoo.com] speaking for the AMA [hemp-sisters.com] said the AMA did not know that the "killer weed from Mexico" that was called marijuana was hemp. The AMA only learned what was being talked about was in fact hemp 2 days before the hearing. He further stated "We cannot understand yet, Mr Chairman, why this bill had been prepared in secret for two years without any intimation, even to the profession" that it was being prepared.

Yes. For more information I suggest you look into Prohibition in America. It basically created organized crime and made a lot of people, Al Capone being one of the most famous, very rich. For more further reading, also check out what happens to prices of goods once they go from being sold legally to being sold on the black market.

I actually have some data from my sociology class that could support his claim. I don't have a reference to give you, except that the story is found in "The Human Experience" reader. I don't have it handy, or I'd give you a more exact reference, but the gist of the article was that all victimless crimes - not just marijuana, but also things like prostitution - serve to keep peoples' eyes off of the rich. It's typically the poor who are driven by desperation to do many of the victimless crimes (though, I

2. You realize that God loves you, that you don't need anything else to be happy, that everything is a vibration and the whole living universe is One

3. You become less and less attached to physical goods and material stuf, you stop caring about possesing things and instead focus on spiritual growth

4. You become a very poor source of profits, because you spend much less money, if any at all

There's of course another side effect of being more enlightened, which is: not fitting into the structure of the society. And this is the biggest threat to our current "order". You are much harder to control. To lock in a cage full of shit painted gold.

As I've stated in another post in this thread, I do not do any drugs (although I'd like to try out salvia), preferring meditation and other natural methods.I do not own a TV. It's been veeeery long since I've observed that no matter how many channels I have to choose from, there's still nothing interesting to watch. Later I've learned that you don't need to watch TV for longer than 30 seconds before your mind shifts into an alpha state, where you are very, very susceptible to manipulation. So I do my best t

Data? How about the fact that if Hemp was legalized again it would hold a fucking virtual monopoly over the medical, paper, textiles, oils, bioplastics, and health food markets? Do you even have a CLUE as to what marijuana's uses are? We used hhemp primarily for EVERYTHING in the beginning of our country. Lamp oils, clothing, OUR CONSTITUTION WAS WRITTEN ON FUCKING HEMP PAPER, SO WAS OUR MONEY, livestock feed.

Of course you probably weren't aware that it was a LAW that every landowner grow cannabis on their

Perhaps, but is growing/good/ pot as easy as throwing seeds out in the backyard? I mean, you can make hooch in the bathtub - you can even make it in prison. But it's not very good. For that matter, you really can grow tomatoes by throwing seeds in your back yard, but how many people do that instead of buying them for $excessive at the supermarket?

Growing good, potent cannabis takes time and effort the same way making good wine does, which means there's easily potential for corporate commoditization. Never underestimate people's willingness to buy things they don't need to.

Perhaps, but is growing/good/ pot as easy as throwing seeds out in the backyard? I mean, you can make hooch in the bathtub - you can even make it in prison. But it's not very good. For that matter, you really can grow tomatoes by throwing seeds in your back yard, but how many people do that instead of buying them for $excessive at the supermarket?
Growing good, potent cannabis takes time and effort the same way making good wine does, which means there's easily potential for corporate commoditization. Never underestimate people's willingness to buy things they don't need to.

As someone who has both grown dope and made homemade hooch (and grown tomatoes, for that matter), I can attest that growing good dope is *much* easier than than making good booze. This is not taking into account the risks of legal issues.

Making truly good beer or wine requires a lot of equipment as well as broad knowledge of fermentatation, sanitation, transferring liquids with minimal oxygen exposure, and a thousand other factors that can produce "off flavors". Distillation is even more intensive to do truly well. You can make bad booze without much trouble, but making something comparable to (or possibly even better than) commercial products takes a serious amount of will.

The difference between growing good pot and bad pot, all growing conditions being equal, is simply genetics. No, it's not as simple as "throwing seeds in your back yard" but then neither is growing good tomatoes really either. But if you can provide the necessary light and nutrients to bring a female cannabis plant to mature flowering, whether indoors or outdoors, the potency of your product will virtually entirely depend on the plant's genetics. A novice grower can likely grow better pot than he/she can buy with good seed, but the most experienced grower in the world can't make Sour Diesel from ditchweed seeds.

The real skill in growing pot is how to achieve good yield, and of course, navigating the the minefield of legality. While not *everyone* who smokes bud would grow it if it were legal, people like me who know how to grow it already could grow lots and give it away to friends just like people do now with their tomatoes and zucchini.

I've always felt that a main reason why such a stupid law persists is that there is simply far more money in it being illegal than could ever be profited or taxed out of it in a legal market.

Actually, in the most the united states its almost that easy. You just have to pick the males as soon as you can differentiate them (marijuana has male and female plants, the good stuff comes from the unpolinated flowers of the female).

Most of the 'secret' information about growing marijuana is needed to compensate for the inability to grow it outside under the full power of the sun, rich natural soil, natural mineral rain water, and the flowing open air. In those conditions outside in a temperate climate m

Uncured tobacco is very potent -- the Indians who used it would often pass out after as little as one cigarette, and "communicate with the gods." This type of tobacco should be smoked with caution. The danger here is death from overdose rather than addiction. When used as a ritual narcotic it is not smoked often enough to result in addiction.

Wild tobacco is native to the southwestern United States, Mexico, and parts of South America. Its botanical name is Nicotiana rustica. [snip] "Nicotiana rustica" is the most potent strain of tobacco known to man it is commonly used for tobacco dust or pesticides.

Note that article quotes a nicotine content of 6.5% for Y1, while the entry for Nicotiana Rustica claims 9% [wikipedia.org]; in other words, the wild variety contains more nicotine than the cultivar specifically bred for a high nicotine content by tobacco companies.

Nicotine is also a powerful psychochemical, which acts on the nervous system. In large doses it can be a hallucinogen. In smaller doses it affects the functioning of the nervous system in various ways, as well as affecting the circulatory and endocrine systems. These effects are considered pleasurable and desirable by tobacco users.

The hallucinogenic compound in wild tobacco is nicotine. It isn't addictive is because it simply isn't possible to smoke wild tobacco in the same quantities as the cured tobacco used in cigarettes without dying; or, looking at it the other way, cigarettes are addictive because they aren't strong enough to have a hallucinogenic effect, so you can chain smoke them and remain conscious.

What you are repeating is a clever bit of propaganda: They measured the difference between unfiltered joints and filtered cigarettes, and instead of concluding "filtering reduces carcinogens by a factor if 4", they declared "cannabis causes cancer".There are several things wrong with this conclusion, the first of which being that the sought-after active ingredients of cannabis, THC, are cancer-suppressants, whi

I have yet to hear/see a rational reason why marijuana is still illegal.

There is no rational reason marijuana is illegal. The reason it was made illegal, via the Marijuana Tax Act or 1937 [wikipedia.org] was because hemp was a perceived threat to some rich and powerful industrialists. MIT did a study in the '30s on using hemp as a source of pulp for paper making. An acre or hemp [forestcouncil.org] will produce as much paper as one acre of forest. It concluded an acre of hemp would produce much more paper than an acre of forest. So newsp

I will merely point out that according to the FDA rules for a schedule 1 narcotic, something has to meed all of the following requirements:

(A) The drug or other substance has high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

Does Pot have a medical use: Yup, check out marinol (the THC pill). Bang, struck from schedule 1 right there. It has a currently accepted medical use in treatment for HIV and cancer patients. Not to mention that it could be prescribed off label for a multitude of things (low doses for anxiety, insomnia, etc.) I have in the past smoked and it is a neuro-seditive. Side effects? Yeah, smoke too much, you get paranoid, short term memory lapses, etc. Same with alchohol though, in addition, you can die from alchohol poisoning (and yes it would be possible to OD on THC, but I don't think anyone could stay concious long enough to smoke that much, you'd have to have a high dose IV drip of it or something).
The simple fact of the matter here though is the FDA keeps it illegal not for medical reasons, but political ones. No one wants to be the one who gets smeared for "caving to the drug cartels", despite the fact that the best way to take them out is to take away thier products and sevices. In addition, the DuPont family paid a lot of money back in the day to keep people using wood pulp for paper so they could keep selling thier chemicals. For a good read, check out "Ain't Nobody's Business if I Do" by Peter McWilliams. Available for online reading.

No offense, but wtf are you talking about? Safer? The LD50 of THC is somewhere in the range of 25 POUNDS of crystalline reagent grade product. Its physically impossible to overdose on marijuana - you simple can't fit 25 pounds in your bloodstream. No other pain killer or appetite stimulant has that sort of LD50. It is about as safe as you can get - even safer than sugar.

Actually, vaporization is far more efficient than combustion. The material is heated to the point where the organic volatiles (cannabanoids and terpenes) go through a phase change from semi-solid to gas. Because they are not being combusted (burned) more of the active compounds reach the bloodstream. Conversely, fewer harmful compounds are taken in, thus making vaporization less harmful.
Oral consumption (when combined with a lipid carrier such as butter or chocolate) is one of the most efficient methods of use, although the effects are somewhat delayed when compared to smoking or vaporizing.
Wow, $200. You clearly have not been to the market since the 1980's. High quality cannabis, consisting of seedless female flowers, goes ~$400/oz in most parts of the country.

Actually, by far THE most potent and efficient method of consumption of marijuana is to make an oil extract from the plant material and use it as a suppository. 90% usage compared to vaporization 20% or so. In fact, most drugs will affect you much harder if you plug them up your ass. Don't you know where the phrase 'drunk off your ass' came from?

Actually, vaporization is far more efficient than combustion. The material is heated to the point where the organic volatiles (cannabanoids and terpenes) go through a phase change from semi-solid to gas.

One of the things I absolutely love about drug debate is the informed, relevant, calmly intelligent commentary coming from sources who you can't help but believe are learned advocates because they're users. The irony of the contrast with the popular myth of "dope" and its effects is amusing, as is the contrast with the often misinformed, fallacious, and belligerent commentary from detractors. Fun stuff.

My job is very intellectually challenging, and pushes the bounds of my memory daily. And I smoke pot every day, even regularly before I go into work. And yet... I'm still seen as the best person we have there, and I'm constantly picking up everyone else's slack, most of whom see pot as such a bad thing. In fact, I'm the only one there that I know of that ever even smokes it at all...

Not only that, but a large group of people I know (some friends and some not) decided to do our own little experiment: smoke pot and study for a college exam. We couldn't find any correlation at all. I wish we got this published, but we were somewhat paranoid about someone coming after us for it, what with it being illegal and all.

Physically, there might be something, but I, like many people I know, have difficulty doing our daily exercise routines without smoking pot before hand (mostly psychological reasons that is the reasons we smoke pot in the first place).

So, it's perfectly fine if I have to pick up the slack for people that are smoking pot and as a result not as sharp as they ought to be? I'm sorry, but I'm failing to see how it is that it's not any of my business.

I know a ton of people who use marijuana on a regular basis who also show up for work consistently, do an excellent job, work overtime and then some. So, um, wanna come up with an argument against that?

I've seen people sling around the same old tired arguments against pot since was 16 and first learning about it and trying it, back in the mid '70s. Problem is, not enough people have tried it. Most people who are against pot talk out of their asses without a lick of experience.

"So, you get pulled over and they decide you're baked. They can't really prove it because there is no "immediate intoxication test"

So we'll develop one, and in the mean time continue to use co-ordination and driving ability. driving without due care and attention is still an offence regardless of whether you're baked or not. Believe me, the market will fill this niche in seconds. This is just another stupid excuse.

I didn't bother to get into this discussion because the answer is obvious. Those chemicals are developed by commercial entities which pay big money to politicians to ensure that they are the only painkillers marketable to the masses. When an effective substance can be procured for next to nothing, they want to keep it off the market.

Plus, my original post, especially the part about the color of someone's tongue was, well, tongue-in-cheek.

Actually, if you have THC in your blood then chances are you're stoned, most of the time you can't find THC in the bloodstream after 24 hours or so. Urine and hair tests OTOH can be used to detect use several weeks after the fact but if you smoked your first joint in six months about ten minutes ago and the police grab you there's a pretty big chance it won't show up in a urine test...

This is something used by marijuana users btw, if they get busted right after smoking they go for the urine test, if they ge

You want me to quote my own post to prove I wrote what was mis-replied to?

Residual THC non-psychoactive metabolites are stored in fat and get released into the urine slowly. While the (psychoactive) d9-THC is in your bloodstream you are under influence of it, later the aforementioned metabolites get stored in fat.

If they can't detect any impairment, then what's the problem? If you're significantly impaired, it's going to be obvious. Otherwise you should just be sent on your way.

Everything I've seen on the effects of marijuana on driving indicate that yes, it's mildly impairing, but that impairment never reaches a level equivalent to that of a 0.8 bac. So if it's legal to drive under a similarly impairing amount of alcohol, it should be ok to drive stoned. Also, unlike alcohol, marijuana users know how impaired they are, and compensate. This is why marijuana is *underrepresented* in accident statistics.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that all driving while intoxicated laws are inappropriate. Either you're driving recklessly or not. If you are, go to jail. If not, go home and sleep it off.

Everything I've seen on the effects of marijuana on driving indicate that yes, it's mildly impairing, but that impairment never reaches a level equivalent to that of a 0.8 bac.

Well, I should hope not. If your BAC is 0.8, you are most likely dead. If not, you will have set a new world record for the highest level of alcohol intoxication. Unfortunately, you may not wake up from the alcohol-induced coma to revel in your achievement.

I'm of the opinion that all driving while intoxicated laws are inappropriate. Either you're driving recklessly or not. If you are, go to jail. If not, go home and sleep it off.

Really! Sometimes the indication that someone is driving recklessly is when they plow into the side of a car, killing and maiming the occupants.

Drunk driving laws and enforcement do save lives and prevent many needless tragedies as they statistically highlight those that are most likely to be involved in an accident - they should be tougher if anything.

you have one data point. that's fine. its a real data point, at least.

yours is NOT typical and people should know that. most users don't get 'baked' and drive right away. I've never known anyone like that - not ever.

otoh, its VERY common to drink and drive - even without waiting at all.

choice: would you rather be in the passenger seat of someone who had 2 joints or 2 beers? 1 joint or 1 beer?

I'd take the NO BEERS choice, please, alex. seriously. and the difference is: when you are drunk, you often can't know if you are too impaired to drive. with pots you know. you really do - and it never fully blocks your thinking (that's just BS).

ever break up with an SO and drive? its not much different. ever get fired from a job and have to drive home? that is the level of 'impairment' (distraction) that you might have if you were high and drove. is it illegal or 'dangerous' to drive while you are emotionally distraught (the 2 examples I used) ? no, of course not.

look at the driving and not what's inside the person's body or mind. if you care about 'distractions' and safety hazzards you'll pull over all the arguing couples or the families that have to shout at their kids in the back seat. THOSE are the dangerous distracted drivers. pot users are just easy targets but its not any kind of justice to go after light drug users. its just EASY to say 'we are fighting crime' when in fact, they are only raising more revenue (indirectly).

take the unsafe drivers off the road but pot users are not always unsafe drivers. no correlation at all - its all just made up shit by LEOs and their ilk. talk to those who know this stuff fist hand and you'll see its all just social programming to keep the status quo.

I don't consider any of the reasons you provided as "rational". "We can't control it, we can't tell if your on it when your driving" are not good reasons to me. If a cop can't tell that you are impaired by giving you a field sobriety test then the any thought of arrest should end right there. The reason a cop can tell a raving drunk but has difficulty determining if "smiley" is high is because alcohol significantly impairs your physical coordination while marijuana does not. I don't recommend driving while intoxicated on anything but I would much rather take my chances with people who are "baked as hell" and driving then people who slam 6-10 drinks in a bar and then get behind the wheel.

I have four children; I'm much more worried about them out drinking with people then smoking. Hell, I'm more worried about them smoking tobacco then I am about them smoking marijuana.

Not to stereotype you but I would have thought a guy with a/. handle of Garcia (not to mention the low id) that runs a website called Lazy Lighting would be a little more enlightened on the relative dangers between alcohol and marijuana. Screw the "we can't keep teh childrenz from smoking" rhetoric, the only real reason they have is the trillions you mentioned at the end of your post. America needs to wake up and realize that the emperor wears no clothes [jackherer.com].

If I turn up to work hung over and as a result cannot do my job I get in trouble.If I turn up glassy eyed and obviously impaired I'm not going to be working there very long.

Obviously hung over and still under the effects of the night before- it doesn't matter if I was drinking while off the clock, if it effects me while on the clock that's good enough.Obviously high and still under the effects of the night before-it doesn't matter if I was smoking something while off the clock, if it effects me while on the

Please stop making this ridiculous argument. Beer is easy to make at home, but is legal and taxed. Food is easy to grow at home, but is legal and taxed in some (many?) states. Clothes are easy to make at home, but are legal and taxed in some (many) states.

Please stop making this ridiculous argument. Beer is easy to make at home, but is legal and taxed. Food is easy to grow at home, but is legal and taxed in some (many?) states. Clothes are easy to make at home, but are legal and taxed in some (many) states.

Beer is doable, but not all that easy to make at home. You have to build at least a minimal apparatus, and you have to employ some fairly stringent (for a home environment) anti-contamination protocols. It takes time, and the end result usually ends up tasting a little better than horse piss. It's fun (and mine quit tasting like horse piss after a few tries), but not something that will ever be common. Regardless, you are still limited to a very small setup for tax reasons.

Food is food. Apart from subsidies, the growth of food is not very regulated (if for your own consumption). It's about as fundamental a right as there is. Food is also different - you're taxed on profit, but food itself is largely untaxed. Therefore grow all you like.

Clothes are not easy to make at home, at least nothing you'd wear outside. It takes skill and a minimum of equipment. It's not that difficult to build this skill, and brief "homespun" fads have hit the country many times since the Revolution, but on the whole clothing is something that you can rely on never being made at home - except for the statistically small hobbyist, and those who can't afford new clothes. Also, prohibiting clothes made at home would be extremely difficult to provide a reason for, no matter how much any industry screamed for it.

There are a number of reasons why cannabis was illegalized - and most of the common ones you hear are actually true to one extent or another, but none stand out much on their own. Taxation, immigrant paranoia, easy enforcement results, propaganda, and actual honest public health issues. However, brewers were one of the main original impetuses that got the ball rolling, so protecting profits was a major initial cause.

Note that, even today, the alcohol industry is STILL one of the primary sources of funding for anti-legalization. It's easy to see why.

There are an infinite number of dimensions to the whole argument, and basically there are few, if any, good reasons for MJ being illegal. I'm sure someone will trot out each one.

Hemp would pretty well wipe out cotton as a fiber crop, and might well wipe out many of the oil seed crops as well.

Technically I believe that in most states with the proper permits and using approved commercial seed you CAN grow hemp as a crop legally. The problem then is that the market for it is a lot more limited than that for co

"Because the burden of proof is on those that believe that it's harmless rather than those that don't believe it to be safe. Which is just the way that it should be."This is why greasy fast food will never be legal. Which is just the way that it should be.

Are you kidding? If you want to take away someone else's liberty to do something, the burden of proof that the something in question is so harmful to society as to justify that restriction of liberty should fall on you.

Come out to the west coast for a while sometime. Marijuana is very much a part of mainstream culture in several parts of this country, and people already take the drug to very unhealthy/unproductive levels, only outnumbered by those who consume it responsibly. What we're doing now has approximately zero effect on keeping a lid on the substance, and the only real consequence of the current prohibition is that a vast, vast underground economy, one that dwarfs large sectors of legitimate agriculture in many states, is allowed to grow and prosper, at the expense of the government's ability to tax and regulate this trade. Even for harder substances, criminalization is hardly an intelligent way to deal with most of these cases of abuse, when medical intervention would be so much more appropriate than tossing someone in jail. The current drug policy in the US is completely indefensible, and is only allowed to continue due to the political sensitivity surrounding the issue, thanks to propaganda campaigns that were able to find a sizable target of gullible people in this country. Still, marijuana is very much a part of mainstream culture in many parts of the US, and trying to fight it with laws only serves to call the value of law enforcement into question. If you were looking for a way to alienate a large portion of the population from the law, then the War on Drugs is a tremendous success.

Why is it illegal. Because it is a mind altering drug, which can easily be abused (recreational use of this drug is abuse), Being in an altered state of mind isn't productive to society, as well as health concerns.

None of those are valid reasons why it or any such things shouldn't be personal, individual choices in a free society.

So, you can swap possible long-term memory loss for probable short-term memory loss. I'll wait for the large, double-blind study after they've isolated what exactly in the marijuana, if anything, reduces the risk of Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, there have been recent reports that coffee and red wine could reduce the risk of Alzheimer's. Seems like a safer, not to mention legal, alternative to experimenting on yourself by breathing smoke. Most doctors will agree that any smoking is harmful, and before you say that it can be eaten or steeped like tea, carcinogens can still cause cancer even if not smoked.

Marijuana doesn't prevent Alzheimer's so much as give you little, reversible doses of it with every joint. So when the Big A comes along and tries to eat your brain, your brain just goes, "Oh, this again. Glad I remembered to pick up the Cheese Doodles".

The problem with the current legal status of marijuana it that legitimate medical research is hampered. Sure, there is some medical research happening but nowhere as much as there could be. There are many components of marijuana that are not involved with getting you high and these components may have medical benefits. The problem is that we just don't know about them because of all the hysteria generated by "Reefer Madness". We need a calm and rational investigation about all the components of marijuana.

(A) The drug or other substance has high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

None of these conditions are met for marijuana, so why isn't its Schedule I classification being challenged in court?

Dr. Tod Mikuriya told me that he had done some research for the government (during the Carter years), but when his findings indicated probable therapeutic benefit and lack of harm, the report was suppressed.

Quit smoking indicas and stick to sativas if you smoke before bed. I have no problems dreaming at all and I wake up fully refreshed after a sativa sleep. Indica sleeps are absolutely deep and dreamless.